I am fueled, for the most part, by instant gratification and so the idea of getting our house in shape slowly has been one that I've had to adjust to. When we moved in almost two years ago—almost two years ago!—there was so much I wanted to change and fix and decorate that it felt like I'd never get it to a place where it felt like home.

But it turns out that changing and fixing and decorating are three of my most favorite things ever, so the fact that it's been a constant work in progress—and will continue to be a constant work in progress—hasn't really bothered me as much as I thought it might. (Although as I write this, our toilet is sitting in our garage while Sean smashes up the bathroom in preparation for our next major reno, so maybe read that line back to me two weeks from now when my bath is still full of rubble.)

I really do think that the best rooms evolve slowly over time—you wait for that rug to go on sale, you stumble across that perfect estate sale find, you make your own side tables bit by bit over several months. There's something quietly thrilling about the process of threading it all together, and even though it feels like you'll never be done, there's a moment when you finally stop, put down your glass of wine on the table that is conveniently located exactly where you want to put down your glass of wine, and realize that everything in the room makes you happy.

I'm done. My living room makes me very, very happy.

But it wasn't always that way, of course. To demonstrate, I shall take you back to a dark time in my life that I like to call....The Before.

When we first moved in, the biggest challenge we faced with our living room was that crazy wooden block over in the far corner. We couldn't get rid of it (it's a cut-out to accommodate the headroom needed by the staircase below) and while we tossed around a few ideas for using it as a side table—or even throwing a few pillows on it and calling it a reading nook—the placement of it just seemed really random and awkward.

So after much rumination and many furniture arrangements sketched on the back of old Target receipts, we decided that if we couldn't beat that random block of wood in the corner of the room, we'd join it. Specifically, we'd join it together with a whole bunch of other pieces of wood and turn it into a built-in bookcase.

Actually, we didn't do this at all. We worked with an amazing carpenter—whose services I bid on through his daughter's school auction because his wife worked at my old company; try saying that three times fast—and he, in turn, hooked us up with this mysterious dude in Santa Cruz who built the bookcases, delivered them to our house, and installed them for us without us ever having met him. (If you're in the Bay Area and want the details on either of these guys, let me know and I'll hook it up. They were both absolutely fantastic.)

After that we basically just threw a bunch of our furniture into the room and called it good. For at least seven or eight months.

A little while after that, we finally hung some artwork—all photos Sean took during our six months in Asia—and bought a rug I'd been visiting on Overstock for an entire financial quarter. We also bought a new couch, but there was something wrong with it after a few weeks, so they came to pick it up and fix it and left us a loaner in its place.

This was the only period of my life during which I started to loathe the color turquoise.

But now the loaner couch is behind me, thank goodness—as are all the thoughts I tried to repress about who else might have sat on it and what they might have done while doing so—and I am pleased to report that my living room exists firmly in After territory.

It looks a little bit like this:

Sadie says she likes it, even though her expression may be telling you otherwise.

I got that geography book at an estate sale for $1, and it's probably the second thing I'd rescue from my burning house in the middle of a fire. The third would be the buttery-soft ottomans I lusted over for many years and now frequently stroke when I think no-one's looking.

I found the coral lamps one day on a whim in Marshalls and texted a picture of them to Sean, who was waiting in the parking lot. We were on our way to the airport and I almost missed my flight waiting in line to buy them, but it was worth it once I got home and googled how much they were supposed to cost compared to what I'd paid for them. I'm not a particularly sporty person, but I get my fair share of adrenaline kicks hunting down home furnishing bargains in suburban discount stores.

I painted the wall behind the TV a dark moody gray one day last January when Sean was off snowboarding. It was a total whim and I wasn't sure what he was going to think when he came home. For three quarters of the time I was doing it, I was pretty sure I was making a mistake, but it all came together at the last minute and now I love it.

You look into the living room from the kitchen/dining room—hello, chalkboard with the weekly menu on it!—and it always makes me quietly pleased to see my books arranged by color like that. I know a lot of people have a lot of things to say about organizing your books by color, but I haven't yet tired of the way it looks, and I tend to remember my books by their covers anyway, which makes it easier to locate the one I'm looking for.

I also like seeing all the little bits and pieces I've collected on my travels. That shell above came from a beach in the Bahamas, and I'm still not entirely clear on whether I was actually allowed to take it out of the country. The little bowls came from a market in Cape Town, and my friend Melissa found that vintage jigsaw puzzle at an estate sale and sent it across the country to me in a pizza box.

And that's it: one living room that's supremely comfortable, matches my style exactly, and is a generally pleasing place to spend an embarrassing amount of time watching trashy reality television. There are a few more pictures here, if you're interested, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Unless they're about that loud crash that just came from the half-demoed bathroom, that is, because on that I plead sweet and blissful ignorance. Call me if the tub falls through the ceiling, but not before.

Jaw dropping. Those coral lamps! That tufted bench! The color-coded books! I love all of it, and Sadie looks oh-so-very regal, too. Perfection.

2

Jo Apr 25, 2012

Love love love. The whole 'bookcase-inspired-by-a-crazy-wooden block' is genius and looks like it was there all along! I have serious living room envy all the way from NZ... Great job and good luck with the bathroom, looking forward to its before and after :)

3

Amy Apr 25, 2012

I freaking love your style, Holly, and your redecoration posts are my favourite. Those side tables... <3 and the bookcase, and the chevron cushions, and the photos, and the dark grey wall, and... everything, actually. Can't wait to get out of a student flat and be able to redecorate my own house. Can I have your life, please?

(ALSO-also, when my husband and I moved into our new apartment a few months ago -- photos of which I put up yesterday on my blog -- I was inspired by you in many ways. 'Cause, DUH, you're the Interior Decorating Queen. All hail Queen Holly! Heh heh.)

5

minni Apr 25, 2012

Love the whole room of course. But The Pillows! Oh! The pillows! I have a dark gray sofa and I need pillows like that (or are they called cushions when they're not in the bed? don't know, I'm not a native English speaker) Where did you get them? Did you buy fabric and sew the covers, or buy the pillows whole or what?

6

Shannon Apr 25, 2012

I love this room...and that rug is to die for! I still haven't finished my living room completely, and am having trouble due to the fact that it is really long and not that wide. I like your ideas, and may steal some! Thanks for sharing!

Note to self to stop at Marshall's more often...my parents have often extolled the virtues of their discounts on home goods. Incidentally, did you intend to make your photos unpinnable now? Certainly understandable if that's the case, I just wanted to check because I wanted to pin those coral lamps to my furniture/fixtures board as lighting that I like.

Adding those bookshelves made the room. Brilliant. Everything else is lovely and it's nice to see that I'm not the only one taking my sweet time to finish a room. Our living room is currently empty except for curtains, a donated rug and matching chairs i bought off craigslist. it will come together one day, i just have to find all the other pieces!

20

Elizabeth Apr 25, 2012

I feel like you wrote about choosing the sofa - either via your blog or twitter - and I cannot remember were you got it. Would you mind sharing? Thanks!

Hey, my company produced the illustrated edition of 1776! Fun spotting it -- and other Chronicle books, which is my company's sister company (yes, I get an awesome discount!) -- in your pretty living room. :)

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laziza7717 Apr 25, 2012

I LOVE IT. You might recall an email from me several weeks ago begging for this very post. You did NOT disappoint. :) This is beautiful!

I seriously just put that same rug in my Overstock cart THIS morning. Great minds!

Your place is off the charts awesome. I love your style!

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Sarah Apr 25, 2012

I love it. I actually have a turquoise blue sofa that resembles your loaner. I'll try not to take your hatred of it personally. ;) And I have the same rug that I also stalked on overstock. Did your's shed like mad? I had to vacuum every day for six months before it stopped shedding.

Minni and Anna-Louisa: The grey and white cushions on the couch are from Overstock: http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Deco-18-inch-Charcoal-Grey-Decorati.... The yellow and white ones are from an Etsy seller called Modern Pillow (who also has a store on ebay, which is I think where I bought them.) The red and white one on the armchair was sewed half by me, half by my mum (though let's be honest: MOSTLY by my mum) and I bought the fabric on fabric.com.

Susan, Chelsea, & KWu: Definitely didn't mean to make the photos unpinnable; I've just discovered it's something to do with Flickr's new policy and I can't seem to figure it out (all my photos on Flickr are public and sharing is enabled.) If anyone knows how to make Flickr pics pinnable, please let me know! UPDATED TO ADD: Sean came up with a workaround. You should be able to pin now!

Elizabeth: The post linked above ("a new couch") is the one where I mentioned buying the couch. We got it from a local place in SF called Build a Sofa: http://www.buildasofa.com/. They seem to have branches in Orange County and a few cities in Texas too. The style is called "Ronaldo" and it's a lot like the Petrie in Crate & Barrel, which was twice as expensive.

Sarah: Yes, that rug sheds like crazy! And it wasn't the actual sofa I hated that much, more just the fact that a) it was a loaner, which felt creepy, and b) the turquoise would have been great in a different room but clashed like crazy with what we already had. It was super comfy though!

Such a beautiful job! Thank you for sharing, Holly. The [light] grey wall color is exactly the kind of shade I'd like to paint my bedroom in my new apartment -- Could you let me know what brand, number, etc you used?

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Katie B. Apr 25, 2012

Oh, the ottomans! I have been looking for some just like that to stroke when no one is watching. Where did you find yours?

Ginny: The paint color is called Filtered Shade and it's by Valspar. I have it in the kitchen as well as the living room and love it. I went through many grays, all different brands, to find the perfect neutral (not too green, not too blue, not too purple) and this is it.

The new ottomans look awesome! Also I love you post the before pics. That's when your vision is really apparent. It's a fabulous room by any measure but once I remember that you were dealing with A RANDOM BOX in the corner, I'm blown away all over again.

CONGRATS!

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Amy Apr 25, 2012

New goal for life: have a bookcase and arrange all the books by color.

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Denise Apr 25, 2012

Oh yes, as Katie B. requested... the strokeable ottoman info please!

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kathy Apr 25, 2012

maybe it's the string of three horribly lazy landlords i've got going and (to put it charitably) the "quirky" bathroom in the apartment i now rent or maybe i'm just not feeling very creative at this moment, but that permanent and not-so-little box of headroom in the corner of the living room would have been enough for me to not buy that house ... but you created the perfect solution! that shows such creativity and i am very impressed! and i am very happy that you are happy with your living room. congratulations! :)

Seriously, installing that bookcase was the smartest decision ever. And as usual, I love your style and am always inspired by you.

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Alicia CP Apr 25, 2012

I'm going to Pin the shit out of this! I want your couch. And cushions and I thought I didn't like the rug on Overstock, but now I want it. Oh and will you be my friend so I can be cool by association and mooch off of your design ideas. I'll provide tamales at Christmas and baked goods throughout the year in return. Because I'm not a TOTAL moocher/jerk.

44

Auburn Apr 25, 2012

I will be pinning this in its entirety--well done.
I tried to hire AB Chao almost a year ago with visions of this very end product loosely floating in my head and then realized I live in a rental and would be an idiot to try and design around the space/paint color.

Definitely need the ottoman info.

Also, it sounds like there was a snafu with the Build a Couch ordeal (given the loaner and all). Can you recommend them? I am in SF too so the idea of something local is appealing. And the timing is perfect given that I spent an hour online yesterday researching "what kind of sofas will prevent cats from scratching". Answer: none. Of course. I've been a cat owner all my life, what kind of idiot am I? Though some swear by microfiber so that's where I'm leaning. Anyway, all of this research culminated in my purchasing $150 worth of scratching posts...but no couch. We're getting married this summer and I can't bear the thought of people coming over to our house and seeing our sad, saggy, faded and totally torn up sofas. So, help me Holly! Please tell me that Build a Sofa is the answer to my couch woes! Also please tell me that their sofas don't start at $5K.

Totally love your living room! :)
I just have one question and I think I also asked a similar question in your study room renovation. Where are the cords/cables of your TV?! are they all behind the TV? I'm super curious! :p

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Nothing But BonfiresApr 25, 2012

Denise and Katie B: I looked for ottomans like this FOREVER. I mean, we're talking YEARS. Every time I thought I'd found something, it ended up either being ten zillion dollars or being out of stock. I even decided to MAKE them at some point (I had very detailed and elaborate plans for doing so, although I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have come out even half as well as these ones.) Anyway, all this to say that I finally found them (in stock, at a price I could live with) at a furniture store online called Great Deal Furniture. It sounds kind of shady, but they were a dream to deal with -- everything shipped super fast and was packed immaculately. They even offer 15% off for new customers, though I had to CALL THEM for the coupon code, which was kind of weird. But worth it!

Auburn: Yeah, I'd recommend Build a Sofa overall. The customer service was really good (see: fixing our old sofa and giving us a loaner) although I haven't been 100% pleased with how the sofa itself has held up (the seat cushions seem to get flat/wrinkled pretty quickly...but I'm thinking this is maybe just something that generally happens to sofas? It's not a big deal and they're easily smoothed out, but still.) As for price, this one was about half of what we would have paid for Crate & Barrel's Petrie sofa, which is almost identical (but we could customize this one with the fabric we wanted and leave the tufted button parts off the seat cushions.) They also have 20% off sales around every major holiday, so wait til Memorial Day! (That's when we bought ours.)

Just lovely. I'm particularly envious of the travel trinkets and the built-ins. And just, you know... your life. ;)

I've been looking for a night stand solution for our master bedroom -- would you be willing to send a gal your stencil template? Your end tables are gorgeous! Did you have to print that on legal-sized paper?

You knew you could count on me to be the one person who has a critical comment, right? I never disappoint.

First, let me say I love 99% of this room. Bookcases? Brilliant. Rug? Perfect. Retro arc lamp? Lovely! And grey is a perfect background for pops of color, which can be changed whenever you want via throw pillows, vases, and etc.

My one critique is the coffee table. I'm seeing instead a more retro affair, lower, and more towards square than rectangular. Something that would really pull the whole mid-century modern look together. This coffee table kind of says "meh... 1980's brass and glass" to me.

I didn't read through all of the comments above, so my apologies if I'm asking something you already answered...but what I'd like to know is, um, if your cat is declawed? I am DESPERATE to get new living room furniture but I keep stalling because I know how my cats treated the sides of my current sofa. If she's not declawed do you have some sort of amazing trick that's kept her from tearing about your sofa and those gorgeous ottamans?

Room looks AMAZING!

58

Nothing But BonfiresApr 28, 2012

Kelli: Nope, she's not declawed. The sofa and armchair are both microfiber, which they say cats don't like to scratch as much. It doesn't stop them ENTIRELY (as you would see, if you looked at the arms of our sofa close up!) but it's a lot better than other fabrics (we had something non-microfiber once and both our cats TORE IT UP.)

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Eve Apr 29, 2012

Beautiful! Where did you get the picture frames? I'm looking to do a very similar picture arrangement in my living room!

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Amanda Apr 29, 2012

What a lovely room! I love your editions of Oliver Twist, Gulliver's Travels, etc - where can I find them? They are so pretty :)

Your house is so beautiful! I want to copy this room, but I would have to find a place to cage my children so they don't touch anything.

62

Nothing But BonfiresApr 30, 2012

Marcheline: Huh, interesting, I don't think the coffee table says "1980s brass and glass." I searched forever to find the one I wanted—which is exactly this—and it's got more of a Hollywood Regency look to me. My style is definitely a mix of a whole bunch of things; not really straight up mid-century modern.

Eve: the picture frames are from Ikea. The link to the exact kind and size is a little higher in the comments!

Amanda:the books were a Christmas present from my brother Tom, but I'm pretty sure you can just get them on Amazon. Search for Penguin Classics, I think?

It looks amazing! I am in love with your leather tufted benches, the rug and your pillows! Gorgeous!

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Gina May 02, 2012

I love, love, love that coffee table and have been searching for a similar one for YEARS. Seriously. Years. Not an exaggeration. If anything, I'm underplaying. Please tell me where you found it?!

66

Nothing But BonfiresMay 03, 2012

Gina: I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but it's actually made by La-Z-Boy! You don't even know the amount of digging I had to do to discover this. It's called the Elipse coffee table, and you can see it on their website here: http://www.la-z-boy.com/Product/6998-8667/Elipse-Rectangle-Cocktail-Table/. Unfortunately, you can't order it through their site; you have to see if anyone in your area carries it, then call them and place the order through the phone (this is what I did, anyway.) It took about 4-6 weeks for it to come in, then they delivered it to me for free (this may have just been a special that the store had going on, and not standard practice; you might have to pick it up yourself.) Anyway, it was a totally circuitous loop and certainly felt like a pretty unconventional way to buy something, but it was so worth it in the end. You CAN buy it from the internet -- from a third party store -- but they're charging around $300. When I bought it through the La-Z-Boy store direct, it was $150. Hope that helps!

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Gina May 03, 2012

There is no shame in your interior design game. You, lady, are one BAMF furniture procurer. And a godsend. I am so on this. Thank you!

I love the room! Actually, I love your entire house and style, we have pretty much the same taste.
I've been reading the comments above, but as far as I've been able to see, nobody asked about the 2 white chairs in front of the bookcase. Can you please be so kind and tell me where you found them? Thank you :)

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Elise May 06, 2012

I hope I'm not too late...where is that amazing lamp that arcs down over the room from??

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Erol Jul 19, 2012

Hey, the place looks great! I'm really impressed with how meticulously you designed everything! I love the tv console... reminds me of a retro/Mad Men look which I'm desperately trying to achieve in my apt - obviously not the style you were going for; suppose that’s difference between masculine/feminine taste. Did you happen to buy it online somewhere? (Super hopeful) Oh, and btw, after finding your blog I basically stalked your entire house. WOW! Really brilliant!